


Anthology

by ElegantFeatherDuster



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 12:04:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1982322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElegantFeatherDuster/pseuds/ElegantFeatherDuster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a certain kind of peace that two lonely souls sometimes find in one another, even if only for an instant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Summer

**Author's Note:**

> An anthology of short pieces, some funny or sexy or sweet, that occasionally spill onto the page in desperation before they can be lost to time. Some stand on their own and some simply can't, or won't, fit in as pieces of other works.

It’s not summer in New York yet, not quite, but every day seems warmer than the last like a slow-moving portent of days to come. It’s warm enough that they’ve dispensed with most of the sheets and sure, Tony could turn on the air conditioning. His environmental controls could keep the room at any temperature they liked. But Loki likes having the windows open, likes the movement of air and the muffled, faint sound of the noisy city that floats up from dozens of floors below.

They are not alone, but this far up it almost feels like they could be.

It’s slow and easy and perfect and Loki can’t quite remember the last time he felt like this, all wrapped up in another person, comfortable and safe.

Tony stirs slightly beside him, not quite awake but getting there and closes the gap between them to press a kiss to his shoulder and then another shift, another kiss, this time in the hollow behind his jaw. Finally, Loki sighs, a tiny, fond thing and turns just enough to intercept Tony’s next approach and kiss him back.

Tony makes a quiet, pleased noise against his mouth and sneaks fingers under the hem of his shirt, ghosting over the tender skin of his stomach without any aim other than to touch. Loki still marvels at little moments like this, even as he laughs at himself for doing so. It’s been months, a heartbeat for him and perhaps a little longer for Tony, but he still feels as though this brand new, shining thing between them is liable to disappear at the slightest provocation. The universe has never been so kind to him before. Why should it start now?

Tony makes no move to pull away, just keeps kissing him lazy and slow and Loki almost doesn’t notice when the idle tracing of his fingertips takes on a pattern with more intent, shifting lower until they’re brushing just above the level of his boxers – Tony’s boxers, always Tony’s. He could buy his own, but then he wouldn’t have the satisfaction of hearing that amused, proud huff that masquerades as annoyance every time Tony catches him at it.

It takes a few moments to gather enough of his concentration to will their clothing away and when he does, it’s a slow fade like molasses with none of the usual dazzle and glitter.. It’s not his most impressive attempt, but Tony makes a sound like laughter against his lips in any case.

His fingers keep moving, touching only just enough to tease as he trails them down along Loki’s length and perhaps Loki will allow him this game for today. He’s too comfortable to push and pull and twist in the dance that is their relationship most days.

So he let’s Tony touch and tease and kisses him senseless all the while until one or the other of them grows bored of it. They’re not entirely sure who because Tony wraps his hand around Loki and strokes with a firm twist of his wrist at almost the same time that Loki curls a leg over his and drags their hips together.

Loki has learned only recently that the right application of magic sent skimming just under the surface of Tony’s skin makes him shiver in the most delightful way. Tony groans when he does it this time, pulling back just enough to grin at him, sleepy and all stupidly fond and just a little like he’s daring Loki to keep it up. It’s so thoroughly _Tony_ that Loki has to bury his face in Tony’s shoulder to hide his expression.

He rolls them over so he’s sitting astride Tony’s hips and grins down at him even as he reaches back and guides Tony into his body. Tony protests, murmurs something about preparation, but Loki leans down and whispers back that he is a god and he will do as he chooses.

Tony only laughs.

Loki shifts his hips in small circles, relishing the feel of it, the stretch of Tony inside him. It’s different than it was the night before, when Tony had fucked him open with mouth and fingers and cock until he’d shuddered and could convince his voice to do no more than gasp out Tony’s name over and over again like a mantra.

Like this, in the light of the late morning sun, he can take his time and map all the planes of Tony’s body with hands and eyes as he forces the man to fall to pieces beneath him. And Tony loves it, Loki can see in the way his hands curl around Loki’s hips and in the smiling curve of his mouth, ever amused with Loki in a way no one else has ever been and it feels almost like a physical blow when Loki realizes that there’s been something new in Tony’s expression for weeks and weeks now and he _missed_ it.

Tony doesn’t just love this, he loves _Loki_ and that’s not the same thing at all. That’s less gratifying than it is absolutely terrifying.

He doesn’t even notice when he stops moving, but Tony does because his expression goes at first curious and then concerned.

“Loki?” he asks and there has to be something showing on Loki’s face but he can’t quite seem to figure out what it is or how to fix it.

“I love you too,” Loki breathes out and the look on Tony’s face is so utterly astonished and bewildered that Loki can’t help but laugh at him and think that maybe, just maybe, the universe has chosen to be kind to him just this once.


	2. Light

Tony has always hated camping, ever since he was a kid. Not, of course, that his work-a-holic father and jet-setting mother were terribly fond of it either. But he’d gone once and another two or three times because of school and hated every moment he had to spend away from electricity and running water and normal food.

But being in the middle of the New Mexico desert, close enough to Jane and civilization that they have somewhere to go if they really need to is admittedly a pretty good way to drop off the radar when half the evil-doers in the universe seem intent on tracking them down and destroying all that they love.

It’s made more bearable too by Loki who is, apparently, skilled in the fine art of camping due to several centuries of doing just that with some combination of Thor, Sif and the Warriors Three. Of course, being skilled in the fine art of camping doesn’t include even a basic understanding of things like the solar shower or the camp stove and Tony has to implore him to stop bringing home dead animals every time he leaves the campsite.

Loki’s also magic and as entertaining as he is aggravating most days which is really half the reason Tony likes him so much in the first place. So overall they manage to make it work.

He even hates to admit it, but there’s a certain charm to quiet moments like this, when Loki consents to share a blanket with him and laugh cruelly at Tony’s mutinous complaints. He hates camping and misses JARVIS and his robots. Loki needles him for his thick woolen sweater—cashmere, Tony corrects—even though it actually suits him rather well.

Loki looks up at stars that don’t match the ones he grew up with and tells Tony stories of all the spaces in between. He shows him small pieces of magic and does all that he can to explain in the face of Tony’s unending desire to _know_. He tries even though magic is and has always been in his blood and he doesn’t know how to break it down into numbers, words and diagrams the way that Tony wants him to.

It takes a while, but eventually Tony gives up or perhaps he just gets tired of talking. So he sits quiescent, leaning heavily against Loki’s shoulder and watching as he spins knots of glowing gold between them.

 


	3. Tattoo

Sometimes the lines blur and the things he creates feel a little like children. Tony knows this.

He understands.

But when he was a child, sometimes it seemed like the only thing his father could talk about was Steve Rogers. Their house was filled not with the kind of cheap plastic and paper memorabilia available to the public, but with personal mementos— photos, blueprints, pieces of half-finished shields and half-finished letters.

There were times when Tony would stand and stare at the photo behind his father’s desk and think that Captain America was the friend-project- _son_ that Howard had always wanted and that Tony was just the one who happened to carry on his name.

In college, there had been one night when he’d gotten too drunk and too angry and made Rhodey take him to some shady tattoo parlor in a back alley where they didn’t ask him how old he was or if he was sure this was really what he wanted.

It had barely hurt, the red and blue and black being engraved into his skin and after it was done, he’d realized with an ugly lurch in his stomach that his mother would never have approved. But it wasn’t like she’d ever see it now.

There have been times since, nights repeated over and over again where he walks in and sits and waits and tells himself he’ll get something else tattooed over it. He promises to cover that mark on his skin that doesn’t mean what it used to, especially now that he’s met the real Steve, fought and bickered and saved the world with him. Now it just feels heavy with memories that Tony would rather forget.

But every time, no matter where he goes or how much he drinks before he arrives, he always sits down in that chair and what comes out of his mouth is somehow never what he told himself it would be. It’s never a command to hide the image of that shield between his shoulders.

Tony’s skin is always changing, marred by ink and wounds, scars that alter the landscape of his oh-so-fragile human body. But somehow he’s never quite been able to rid himself of this one thing.


	4. Chapter 4

Tony smiles, a weak, breathless, joyful thing that Loki doesn't see so much as feel against his mouth. They're not kissing, not quite, though they were a moment ago and likely will be again soon. They're just sitting there with their lips barely a breath apart and–apparently–grinning like idiots.

Then the Avengers alarm goes off and Tony jerks back a few inches in surprise. After that, there's a beat of stunned silence before he swears colorfully and Loki bursts into laughter.

“Not now,” Tony groans, breath hitching subtly as he lifts himself off Loki's length and out of his lap.

Loki watches, still chuckling with an odd sort of possessive glee at the thought that Tony won't have time to shower before he gets into his suit, that he'll be marked and sore and sticky and immensely annoyed about all of it for as long as it takes to deal with whatever has come up.

As Loki climbs from the bed, all grace even though he'd been shuddering and gasping against Tony's throat only a few minutes before, the shimmer of his magic falls cross his skin like so much liquid gold forming into swaths of leather and fabric as it goes. Behind it follows the hard gold of his armor and Tony knows he must be expecting a fight.

“Does that mean you're actually naked under there? I always wondered,” Tony smirks, watching him from his place in the sheets.

Loki turns to look at him over his shoulder, a devious smile playing on his lips.

“Perhaps I am, perhaps not. But it's much more interesting not to know, isn't it?” and then he's walking out of the room without so much as a backward glance, leaving Tony to scramble and wince as he tries to find clean underwear.


	5. Bucky

 

(Art by[ Moonriot](http://moonriot.tumblr.com/))

 

"Come on, Buck. Hold still," Steve says and it's so fond, so affectionate that it pulls painfully at something in Bucky that he didn't even know existed until this moment.

He does as he's instructed, too used to following orders to do much else and maybe it's the sudden, absolute stillness of his body that makes Steve realize, but realize he does.

"Sorry," Steve whispers, lifting the point of his brush away from the surface to look up at him. "You can move if you want to."

They hold eye contact for a beat, then two, then Bucky looks away and Steve looks back down at the freshly painted red star on Bucky's arm. He doesn't know what it means, mostly because Bucky doesn't and the files Natasha got for him don't mention it save for once, and even then it's only a description, not an explanation. But Bucky always seems to relax just a little when he does this, so he keeps on doing it all the same. Every time a mission scratches it off or it simply wears away with the passage of time, Steve will sit down with him and a tiny container of red paint that Tony swears is good on metal. 

Natasha has offered to get him a stencil, but there's something about doing it by hand, about carefully retracing every worn angle and edge, that he enjoys and he hopes, thinks, _believes_ that Bucky feels the same.

They don't often speak to begin with—Bucky hasn't been very talkative since Steve found him again—but it happens even more rarely during these sessions. It's just the quiet sound of their breathing and sometimes the gentle rise and fall of old music drifting from the record player in the next room that Tony sent him last Christmas. Steve's still not entirely sure if it was meant as a joke or not—he often can't tell with Tony—but he does, from time to time, like the methodical, tactile process of choosing a record and placing the needle despite how much easier it is to plug his iPod into the stereo.

Steve only realizes his mind is wandering when he notices Bucky watching him with an unusual kind of intensity.

"What's up?" he says and wonders if this time, for the first time, Bucky will actually tell him.

"Steve?" Bucky says and it hitches just a little in the middle, comes out so uncertain and so hopeful and so very like the Bucky that Steve knew and not at all like the Winter Solder, not the machine that Hydra made him.

"Bucky," he says and smiles all the way to the corners of his eyes the same way he's been smiling at Bucky all their lives and then, all of a sudden, he has an armful of Bucky that weighs so much more than it used to. But he's stronger than ever now and Bucky's been carrying him around all their lives, so maybe it's about time he started returning the favor.

"Bucky," he whispers again and buries his face in too-long hair. He wraps his arms around Bucky and squeezes, holding on for dear life before this too can slip away.

"Welcome home."


End file.
